Anxious Audrey Part 31

But, tired and exhausted though she was, Audrey could only make a pretence of taking the meal. To be sitting alone in that big room, which she had hitherto never known without her granny, and feeling that in all probability she would never, never see her there again, was sufficient in itself to destroy any appet.i.te she had. Her thoughts, too, were full of the coming interview. What could she say and do? Would granny be much changed? These and a dozen other questions hammered at her brain as she poured herself out a cup of tea. How she had once longed to be allowed to pour tea from that silver tea-pot, and pick up the sugar with those dainty little tongs, which granny would never allow her to touch. What a proud day it would be, so she used to think, when she might! But now--now that the day had come, she found no pride or pleasure in it, only a sort of shrinking. It seemed to her to be taking advantage of granny's helplessness--that she had no right. She was haunted by the sight of granny's fragile, delicate hand clasping that handle, and delicately turning over the lumps of sugar to find one of a suitable size.

"Would she be much changed?" Her thoughts flew again to the coming interview, which she so dreaded.

Yet, after all, though sad, it was very quiet and simple. Granny lay flat in her bed, looking much as usual, save that the face surrounded by the night-cap frill was thinner, and gentler, perhaps, and more kind.

"Come round to the other side, dear," she said softly, as Audrey approached her, and only then did Audrey realise that granny's right arm and side were helpless.

She was very white as she stooped down to kiss her grandmother, and her lips trembled.

"It is all right, dear; don't you grieve about me," granny whispered.

She was so weak she could not speak very well. "I am quite ready-- anxious--to go. I am very glad you came to me, Audrey; you have made me very happy."

Audrey knelt down by the bed, holding her granny's hand in both hers.

"I--oh, granny, I wish I had never left you!" She pressed the fragile hand against her cheek caressingly. "I--I didn't want to go.

I shall have home and the others always, and you only for a little while."

Her sobs choked her.

"Dear, you do not know--no one knows--how long you may have each other, and it was your duty to go. Your mother was ill, and needed you; I was well, and had many to take care of me. I did not want to let you go, but I was glad afterwards, when I saw you again, I knew it had been best for you. Keep to the path you have set your feet on so bravely, dear."

Granny's voice died away. She was too tired to talk any more.

"To-morrow," she gasped; "send nurse--now."

So Audrey, with another lingering kiss, crept softly away, to spend the long lonely evening among the shadows in the great drawing-room, where everything seemed to speak to her of her granny. Here was her work-table, with her work neatly folded, as she had left it. Here was her book with a folded piece of paper in it for a marker. She could not bear it any longer. In her own room the pain might be less cruel.

Audrey sobbed herself to sleep that night, but before that she had made one more resolution, with her prayers. In all the days to come, G.o.d helping her, she would 'Leave no tender word unsaid.' She would strive hard that these bitter memories, this reproach, should never again be hers.

"Out of sight and out of reach they go.

These dear familiar friends who loved us so, And sitting in the shadows they have left, Alone with loneliness, and sore bereft, We think, with vain regret, of some kind word That once we might have said, and they have heard."

Audrey did not know those lines then, but they expressed the thoughts which haunted her in those days, even in her dreams.

Early the next morning, after her breakfast, Phipps came to ask her to go to her granny's room as soon as convenient.

"I will go now. How is she, Phipps? Do you think she is any better, just a shade better?"

But Phipps only shook her head, and hurried out of the room with her head bowed. Poor Audrey! Phipps had dashed all the hopes which had risen afresh with the morning, and sent her to the sick-room unnerved and full of fears.

But face to face with her granny, so calm and placid and content, fears seemed wicked, out of place.

"Audrey, dear, before I have my sleep I want to say something to you in case, later, I may not be able to. When I am gone there are certain things which I wish you children to have. The lawyer knows--it is all written down--but I wanted to tell you myself. I want to ask you--and to ask the others through you--when you wear them to wear them not as ornaments only, but as reminders; will you, dear Audrey? As reminders to--to give your sympathy and love, while it can help, not only at the hour of parting. That is where I have failed. I see it now, and ask G.o.d's pardon." For a moment there was silence in the quiet room; a tear fell from the dying eyes. Audrey's were falling fast.

Presently the weak voice began again. "To you, Audrey, I have given my pearl brooch, and the ring your grandfather gave me as my engagement-ring.

You will value it, will you not, dear? I wish you not to wear the ring until you are eighteen. I was just eighteen when he gave it to me.

To Faith I am giving my ruby cross and brooch--Faith with her warm heart glowing with kindness towards the world, always reminds me of rubies.

Tom is to have his grandfather's watch and chain, and Debby is to have mine. To Baby I have given my string of pearls." Her voice had grown more and more feeble, and now for a moment died away. But very soon she spoke again. It was as though she felt she had not much time, and could not waste a moment of it. "To you, dear, I leave my work-table, too; you loved it so when you were very little. Do you remember?"

Audrey smiled as the memory came back to her of the joy with which she had turned it out, and dusted and rearranged it daily. But her smile changed to tears. "Granny, granny, you must get well, and use it again yourself.

There is your work in it now, waiting to be finished."

A little flicker of pain pa.s.sed over granny's face. "I shall never finish it now," she whispered. "Whenever the end comes, one leaves many things undone. Some do not matter so very much. It is the thought of the things that do matter--neglected--those we might have helped, that stab one to the heart."

With a deep sigh she turned her face on her pillow. Audrey, kneeling beside her, holding her hand, presently laid it gently down, thinking that she had gone to sleep, and, stepping softly to a chair by the window, sat down to wait for her to wake and speak again.

Over in the park the children were playing gaily; the elder folk were already seated on the seats with books or newspaper, or sewing.

How familiar it all was, how dear! Minute after minute pa.s.sed, while Audrey, with her eyes fixed on the distant hills, turned over and over in her mind those last words her grandmother had spoken. How they rang in her ears, as warning bells! By and by the nurse came in.

"Granny is having such a lovely sleep," said Audrey happily. But the nurse, already at the bedside, did not return her smile. Her eyes were on the face on the pillow, her hand on the frail hand lying where Audrey had laid it down.

"She is," she said at last, very softly--"She was. She has had such a beautiful wakening, dear. She has pa.s.sed through the Valley of Shadows, and is safe on the other side."

CHAPTER XVI.

A year had pa.s.sed since Granny Carlyle went to her rest and Audrey returned to the Vicarage to take up her duties there again.

Another summer has come and gone, for it is September now, but a September so warm and sunny and beautiful that, if it were not for the changing tints on the trees, one might well imagine it was still June.

In the Vicarage garden the 'herb bed' had developed into a handsome herbaceous border, varied by patches here and there of feathery parsley, a bush of sage, a clump of lemon-thyme, and mint. Job Toms had retired again to his kitchen-garden, for "he didn't hold with messing up flowers and herbs together, and nothing wasn't going to make him believe but what planting poppies next to parsley was bad for the parsley. Poppies was p'ison, so he'd been always led to believe, and he didn't believe in p'isonous things being planted 'mongst what folks was asked to eat."

So Audrey and Faith and the children had taken the beds in their charge, and in aiming at showing Job what a beautiful, if not useful, thing a herbaceous border could be, they had laboured hard, and were now reaping their reward.

Occasionally, as a great favour, the old man could be coaxed into cutting the gra.s.s--as to-day, for instance, which was a great day in the family history, for it was Mrs. Carlyle's birthday; and not only that, but she was to go to the Mill House to tea. Her first real 'outing' for two long years at least.

To her husband and children, and even to Mary and Job, to have 'mother'

about amongst them again was a cause for such rejoicing that they hardly knew how to express it.

Early in the morning Debby and Tom were up and knocking at Miss Babbs's shop door before Miss Babbs was fully dressed or had raked the ashes out of her kitchen stove.

"Why, Master Tom," she cried, somewhat ruffled by the importunate hammering on her new paint. "Shops ain't supposed to be open till the shutters is down."

"I will take them down for you," offered Tom, blandly.

"I don't want them took down yet, thank you, sir. Why I haven't had time even to light my kitchen fire yet----"

"I'll light your kitchen fire, Babbs dear," said Debby, quite undisturbed by Miss Babbs's wrath. "I'll have it burning like anything by the time you've got your hair on."

Miss Babbs backed away into the dark shop. "I don't want any help, thank you, Miss Deborah," she said, stiffly. "If you'll come again in an hour's time, when the shop is open, I'll be ready to serve you."

"Babby dear, don't be cross," pleaded Deborah. "It's mother's birthday, and we want some flags to decorate the garden, 'cause she's coming out to-day for the first time."

Debby's tone was pathetic in the extreme. Her expression and her words went straight to Miss Babbs's heart, and brought the tears to her eyes.

"Oh, my dear children, you don't say so! Oh, I _am_ glad! Whoever'd have thought it. Come right in--not that I believe I've a flag left, unless 'tis Coronation ones. Come in and shut the door, Master Tom. We don't want all Moor End dropping in, before I'm dressed for the day, and my place tidy. No, never mind the shutters, Master Tom, we'll leave them up for a bit. I'll carry the box into the parlour for you, and you can turn it out for yourselves, while I light my fire, or I shall be I don't know where all day."

Tom and Debby, expressing their thanks as they went, groped their way delightedly past barrels of potatoes, soap-boxes, and goods of many kinds.

The sacks looked quite alarming in the dimness, the barrels as though they might have held all manner of mysterious dangers. The air was heavy with the mingled smell of onions, bacon, scented soap, leather, and groceries.